CHAPTER XVI
DREADFUL CREATURES OF THE GLOOM
The deck of the air ship was tipped up at an angle of forty-five degreesby the pressure, and with inarticulate cries most of those on boardtumbled off, some falling into the water and some disappearing amidst thetangled vegetation. Ala was visible, as the machine sank lower, andcrashed through the branches, clinging to an upright on the sloping deck,while Juba, who hung on like a huge baboon, was helping her to maintainher place.
Almost at the same moment I caught sight of the head of the monstrousanimal which had caused the disaster. It was as massive as that of anelephant or mammoth; and the awful arm resembled a trunk, but was ofincredible size. Moreover, it was covered with sucking mouths or disks.The creature apparently had four eyes ranged round the conical front ofthe head where it tapered into the trunk, and two of these were visible,huge, green, and deadly bright in the gleam of the lantern.
For a moment we all stood as if petrified; then the great arm was thrownwith a movement quick as lightning round both Ala and Juba as they clungto the upright! My heart shot into my mouth, but before the animal couldhaul in its prey, a series of terrific reports rattled like the dischargeof a machine gun at my ear. The monstrous arm released the victims, andwaved in agony, breaking the thick, clammy branches of the vegetation,and the vast head disappeared. Edmund had fired all the ten shots in hisautomatic pistol with a single pressure of the double trigger and anunvarying aim, directed, no doubt, at one of the creature's eyes.
"Quick!" he shouted, as the air ship, relieved from the stress, righteditself; "climb aboard."
The vessel had sunk so low, and the vegetation was so crowded about it,that we had no great difficulty in obeying his commands. He was the lastaboard, and instantly he grasped the controlling apparatus, and we roseout of the tangle. We could hear the wounded monster thrashing in theswamp, but saw only the reflection of its movements in the commotion ofthe branches.
I had expected that Edmund would immediately fly at top speed away fromthe dreadful place, but, instead, as soon as we were at a safe elevation,he brought the air ship to a hover, circling slowly above thecomparatively open spot of dry ground at the edge of the swamp.
"We cannot leave the poor fellows who have fallen overboard," he said, asquietly as if he had been safely aboard his own car. "We must stay hereand find them."
Soon their cries came to our ears, and turning down the light of thelantern we saw five of them collected together on the solid ground, andgesticulating to us in an agony of terror. Edmund swept the ship arounduntil we were directly over the poor fellows, and then allowed it tosettle until it rested on the ground beside them. I trembled withapprehension at this bold maneuver, but Edmund was as steady as a rock.Ala instantly comprehended his intention, and encouraged her followers,who were all but paralyzed with fright, to clamber aboard. A momentarycommunication of the eyes took place between Edmund and Ala, and Iunderstood that he was demanding if all had been found.
There was another--and not a trace of him could be seen.
"We must wait a moment," said Edmund, reloading the chamber of his pistolwhile he spoke. "I'll look about for him."
"In God's name, Edmund! You don't think of going down there!"
"But I do," he said firmly, and before I could put my hand on his arm hehad dropped from the deck. The gigantic creature that he had wounded wasstill thrashing about a little distance off, occasionally making horriblesounds, but Edmund seemed to have no fear. We saw him, with amazement,walk collectedly round the ground encircled by the swamp, peering intothe tangle, and frequently uttering a call. But his search was vain, andafter five minutes of the most intense nervous strain that I everendured, I thanked Heaven for seeing him return in safety, and comeslowly aboard. There was another consultation with Ala, which evidentlyrelated to the ability of the engineer of the ship to resume hisfunctions. This had a satisfactory result, for the fellow took his place,and the vessel finally quitted the ground. But, at Edmund's request, itrose only to a moderate height, and then began again to circle about. Hewould not yet give up the search.
We flew in widening circles, Edmund keeping his lantern directed towardthe ground, and the full horror of these interminable morasses now becameplain. I was in a continual shudder at the evidence of Ingra's pitilessscheme for our destruction. He had meant that we should be the prey ofthe unspeakable inhabitants of the fens, and had believed that there wasno possibility of escape from them. We became aware that there was agreat variety of them in the swamps and thickets beneath through thenoises that they made--heart-quaking cries, squealing sounds, gruntings,and, most trying of all, a loud, piercing whistle whose sibilantpulsations penetrated the ear like thrusts of a needle. I pictured tomyself a colossal serpent as the most probable author of this terrifyingsound, but the error of my fancy was demonstrated by a tragedy whichshook even Edmund's iron nerves.
Always circling, and always watching what was below by the light of thelantern, which was of extraordinary power for so small an instrument, wesaw occasionally a curling trunk uplifted above the vegetation, as if itsowner imagined that the strange light playing on the branches was somedelicate prey that could be grasped, and sometimes a gliding form whosedetails escaped detection, when, upon passing over a relatively openplace, like that where our adventure had occurred, a blood-curdling sightmet our eyes.
Directly ahead, in the focus of the reflector of the lantern, and notmore than a hundred feet distant, stood a prodigious black creature, oneight legs, rolling something in its mandibles, which were held close towhat seemed to be its mouth.
"Good Lord!" cried Jack. "It's a tarantula as big as a buffalo!"
"It has caught the missing man!" said Edmund. "Look!"
He pointed to a shred of garment dangling on a thorny branch. I felt sickat heart, and I heard a groan from Jack. After all, these people werelike us, and our feelings would not have been more keenly agitated if thevictim had been a descendant of Adam.
"He is beyond all help," I faltered.
"But he can be avenged," said Edmund, in a tone that I had never heardhim use before.
As he spoke he whipped out his pistol, and crash! crash! crash! soundedthe hurrying shots. As their echo ceased, the giant arachnid dropped hisprey, and then there came from him--clear, piercing, quivering throughour nerves--that arrowy whistle that had caused us to shudder as weunwillingly listened to it darting out of the gloom of the impenetrablethickets.
Then, to our horror, the creature, which, if touched at all by the shots,had not been seriously injured, picked up its prey and bounded away inthe darkness. Edmund instantly turned to Ala, and I knew as well as if hehad spoken, what his demand was. He wished to follow, and his wish wasobeyed. We swooped ahead, and in a minute we saw the creature again. Ithad stopped on another oasis of dry land, and it still carried itsdreadful burden. Its head was toward us, and it appeared to be watchingour movements. Its battery of eyes glittered wickedly, and I noticed thebristle of stiff hairs, like wires, that covered its body and legs.
Again Edmund fired upon it, and again it uttered its stridulous pipe ofdefiance, or fear, and leaped away in the tangle. We sped in pursuit, andwhen we came upon it for the third time it had stopped in an opening sonarrow that the bow of the air ship almost touched it before we wereaware of its presence. This time its prey was no longer visible. Therewas no question now that its attitude meant defiance. Cold shivers ranall over me as, with fascinated eyes, I gazed at its dreadful form. Itseemed to be gathering itself for a spring, and I shrank away in terror.
Crash! bang! bang! bang! sounded the shots once more, and in the midst ofthem there came a blinding tangle of bristled, jointed legs that thrashedthe deck, a thud that shook the air ship to its center, and a cry fromJack, who fell on his back with a crimson line across his face.
"Give me your pistol!" shouted Edmund, snatching my arm.
I hardly know how I got it out of my pocket, I was so unnerved, but itwas no sooner in Edmund's hand than
he was leaning over the side of thedeck and pouring out the shots. When the pistol was emptied hestraightened up, and said simply:
"_That_ devil is ended."
Then he turned to where Jack lay on the deck. We all bent over him withanxious hearts, even Ala sharing our solicitude. He had lost his senses,but a drop from Edmund's flask immediately brought him round, and he roseto his feet.
"I'm all right," he said, with a rather sickly smile; "but," drawing hishand across his brow and cheek, "he got me here, and I thought it was ahot iron. Where is he now?"
"Dead," said Edmund.
"Jo, I'd have liked to finish him myself!"
We were worried by the appearance of the wound, like a long, deepscratch, on Jack's face, but, of course, we said nothing about ourworriment to him. Edmund bound it up, as best he could, and it afterwardshealed, but it took a long time about it, and left a mark that neverdisappeared. There was probably a little poison in it.
Edmund himself needed the attention of a surgeon, for his wrists had beencruelly burned by the matches, but he would not allow us to speak of hissufferings, and putting on some slight bandages, he declared that it wastime now to get out of this wilderness of horrors. He communicated withAla, and in a few minutes we were speeding, at a high elevation, towardthe land of the opaline dome. So far above the morasses we no longerheard the brute voices of its terrible inhabitants, nor saw the swayingof the branches as they looked about in search of prey.
"This," said Edmund, "exceeds everything that I could have imagined. I donot know in what classification to put any of the strange beasts that wehave seen. They can only be likened to the monsters of the early dawn onthe earth, in the age of the dinosaurs. But they are _sui generis_, andwould make our anatomists and paleontologists stare. I am only surprisedthat we have encountered no flying dragons here."
"But was it really a--a giant spider that captured Ala's man?" I askedwith a shudder.
"God knows what it was! It had the form of a spider, and it leaped likeone. If it had been armored I could never have killed it. I think theshock of its impact against the air ship helped to finish it."
It was only after we had issued from under the curtain of twilight thatwe learned the story of the chase which had brought our salvation. Edmundfirst obtained it from Ala and Juba, filling out the outlines of theirwordless narrative with his ready power of interpretation, and then hetold it to us."
"We owe our lives to Juba," he said. "Ala had just returned to the minefrom the capital when our abduction took place. Juba, who had wanderedout on our track, saw from a distance the seizure, and a few minutesafterwards Ala's air ship arrived. He instantly communicated the facts toher, and without losing an instant the chase was begun. Ingra's delay inchoosing his course was the thing that saved us. They knew that they mustnot lose sight of us for an instant, and their motors were driven totheir highest capacity. Fortunately, Ala's vessel is one of thespeediest, and they were able to gain on us from the start. Slowly theydrew up until the border of the twilight zone was reached. Then as weentered under the clouds we were swallowed from the sight of all exceptJuba. But for his wonderful eyes, there would have been no hope ofcontinuing the chase. He had lived all his life in a land of darkness andnow he began to feel himself at home. Throwing off the shades which hehas worn since our arrival, he had no difficulty in following themovements of Ingra, even after our vessel had completely faded from theview of all the others. So, without abating their fearful speed, theyplunged into the gloom straight upon our track. The nose of thebloodhound is not more certain in the chase than were Juba's eyes in thatterrible flight through the darkness. When Ingra changed his course anddoubled, Juba saw the maneuver and turned the dodge against its inventor,for now Ingra could not see them, and did not know that they were stillon his track. They cut off the corners, and gained so rapidly that theywere close at hand when Ingra rose from the swamp after pitching usoverboard. They had heard Henry's cry, which served to tell them what hadhappened, and to direct them to the spot. But even Juba could not discernus in the midst of the vegetation, and it was the sudden flashing out ofour lamp which revealed our location when they were about to passdirectly over us."
I need not say with what breathless attention we listened to thisremarkable story, which Edmund's scientific imagination had constructedout of the bones of fact that he had been able to gather.
"Jo," said Jack, "our luck is simply outlandish!"
Then he broke out in one of his fits of enthusiasm. Slapping Juba on theshoulder, he danced around him, laughing joyously, and exclaiming:
"Bully old boy! Oh, you're a trump! Wait till I get you in New York, andI'll give you the time of your life! Eh, Edmund, won't we make him amember of Olympus? Golly, won't he make a sensation!"
And Jack hugged himself again with delight. His reference to home threwus into a musing. At length I asked:
"Shall we ever see the earth again, Edmund?"
"Why, of course we shall," he replied heartily. "I have the material Ineed, and it only remains to repair the car. I shall set about it themoment we reach the capital. Do you know," he continued, "this adventurehas undoubtedly been a benefit to us."
"How so?"
"By increasing our prestige. They have seen the terrible power of thepistols. They have seen us conquer monsters that they must have regardedas invincible. When they see what the car can do, even Ingra will beginto fear us, and to think that we are more than mortal."
"But what will Ala think of Ingra now?"
"Ah, I cannot tell; but, at any rate, he cannot have strengthened himselfin her regard, for it is plain that she, at least, has no desire to seeus come to harm. But he is a terrible enemy still, and we must continueto be on our guard against him."
"I should think that he would hardly dare to show himself now," Iremarked.
"Don't be too sure of that. After all, we are interlopers here, and hehas all the advantages of his race and his high rank. Ala is interestedin us because she has, I believe I may say, a philosophical mind, with agreat liking for scientific knowledge. It was she who planned andpersonally conducted the expedition toward the dark hemisphere. From meshe has learned a little. She appreciates our knowledge and our powers,and would ask nothing better than to learn more about us and from us. Herprompt pursuit and interference to save us when she must have understood,perfectly, Ingra's design, shows that she will go far to protect us; butwe must not presume too much on her ability to continue her protection,nor even on her unvarying disposition to do so. For the present, however,I think that we are safe, and I repeat that our position has beenstrengthened. Ingra made a great mistake. He should have finished us outof hand."
"His leaving us to be devoured by those fearful creatures showed aninexplicable cruelty on his part; he chose the most horrible death hecould think of for us," I said.
"Oh, I don't know," replied Edmund. "Did you ever see a laughing boythrow flies into a spider's den? It is my idea that he simply wished tohave us disappear mysteriously, and then _he_ would never have offered anexplanation, unless it might have been the malicious suggestion that wehad suddenly decamped to return to the world we pretended to have comefrom. And but for Ala's unexpected return to the mine he would havesucceeded. No doubt his crew were pledged to secrecy."